Funnel cloud spotted southwest of Pangman, Sask.

It may be less than a day away from the first day of autumn, but several people in southeast Saskatchewan spotted a summer sight–a funnel cloud.

At least one funnel cloud was spotted southwest of Pangman around 1:30 p.m. on Wednesday–Environment Canada had reports from a couple of people.

John Paul Cragg is a severe weather specialist with Environment Canada. He said there were some weak cells of activity in the area at that time.

No warnings or watches were sent out for the area, and Cragg said it’s because the storms were so weak.

“If, on the small chance, that a funnel cloud actually touched the ground it would be a very weak land spout tornado, but it doesn’t look like there’s much of a risk, if any, of these touching down.”

Though Saskatchewan’s tornado activity this summer was fairly average, Cragg said it’s getting late in the year to be seeing this kind of thing.

“You just need a bit of an updraft, and some vorticity, so some spinning air that that updraft can catch and stretch out and turn into a funnel cloud… It’s possible to see a funnel cloud with any fast-moving or fast-rising pockets of air, but we get less and less of those as we move into fall and winter.”

Cragg said people in the area could continue seeing funnel clouds through the afternoon.